Kristimama, Citrus are nearly carefree in the Bay Area, so there is no reason not to grow as many as you like. Fill up your whole yard with them! The only real problem that most people run into is infestations of sucking insects (particularly scales), vectored by the omnipresent Argentine ants. Other than that, you basically just plant them and let them go. Give them some acidifying fertilizer in the winter, and keep your soil healthy through mulching. That's about all you need to do. Calamondins are small, sour citrus fruits. They are generally used for their juice, much like you would use lemons, etc. (You wouldn't eat them out-of-hand, unless you *really* enjoy tart flavors!) Calamondins are essentially everbearing, meaning that they should carry ripe fruit just about all year long. This is a very nice characteristic. It is very handy to be able to pluck a few fruits for squeezing into water, over a piece of fish, etc., at any time! I haven't been following this forum that closely, so I'm not sure why folks here prefer to put citrus in smaller pots. However, I would say that most participants on this board probably don't live in areas where there may be absolutely zero rain for months and months on end. Keeping potted plants going when it is extremely hot and dry can be burdensome, and using large containers like half-barrels will at least minimize this problem.

Whoa, I never expected this many replies so fast. Thank you every one. When you are using the stick to test moisture, do you let it "soak" in the soil or just dip it in then immediately pull it out? Thanks for the advice on the soil mixes too. Since I have three plants coming, I think I'll try each mix on separate plants. Maybe I'll be able to spot which mix works best for me before losing any of them. As for my growing environment... The soil I used for the first citrus was Miracle Grow Cactus and Citrus mix. Since I was afraid of causing more harm than good with the last two, I just left them in the pot they shipped in. I have no idea what soil they shipped with, but it sure looked like the same mix - just without plant food. The actual orange branch on all three plants was maybe 2-4 inches long. However, the rootstock on the last two was around 6 inches tall. With the plants nowhere near fruit bearing size, I figured I didn't need to worry about fertilizing just yet. I'm sure most of you would cringe at my grow lights. They are just a few 13W "energy efficient" full spectrum bulbs - the kind used in modern home lighting to treat SADS - jury rigged to a timer. It seems to work though. I have been able to grow opunta cactii, coffee, allspice, and vanilla among other things. For my smaller plants that need more humidity, I just place the bulbs at the top of my terrarium and use the timer to dial in the amount of light required. I don't have a humidity gauge, so I can't provide specific measurements, but I try to maintain my terrarium at a humidity similar to the feel of a local summer day. I haven't been able to confirm this with any records, but if I recall correctly, our summers are usually at 50-60% - maybe as high as 70%. I keep the temperature at 65 to 75 deg F in the winter. In the summer, temperatures might spike to 90 or 95 deg F. I've not had so much trouble learning to care for my other plants because I always had more of a grace period to figure out what I was doing. With the citrus, it goes from healthy to dead in the space of a week and I never have enough time to observe the results of whatever change I try to make.

I live in NW MN and have sucessfully ordered nice dwarf citrus from EdibleLandscaping for years. Mine have all fruited in pots in my windows with never moving outdoors. FourWinds is very reputable and is actually the original "improved" Meyer stock producer, but the are pricey and most larger than quart container sized trees are shipped bare root. Both EdibleLandcaping and Cliftons Nurseries ship potted in their orig soil. I just ordered a Meyer, Bearrs and Limequat today after losing some of my mature trees to spider mites.

Nick, There are pros and cons and it depends a great deal on the specific dwarfing rootstock and on the specifics of your site. In general, in the warmer part of the state, most of the customary rootstocks are cold hardy. If you are north of 94 or have a windswept site where snow cover doesn't accumulate then rootstock hardiness does become a concern. Also, further north, up around Bemidji, the growing season is enough shorter and the summer temps lower enough that you're really better off with a more vigorous rootstock. My father had a home orchard when I was growing up; I have one of my own now. His trees were semi-dwarf (a tradition he's continued since moving to a nicer place, though he only has a few trees now). Mine are standard. The main problem with semi-dwarf trees for home orchardists is that they have problems with anchorage and you can easily lose a tree in a windstorm. This is much more of a problem for small orchards since the larger block plantings typical of commercial operations tend to provide some mutual protection from wind among the trees. Similarly if you are a commercial orchardist and have 300 Haralsons it's no big deal if you lose a couple each year while if a home orchardist loses a tree that usually means loss of that variety until a replacement tree matures. Semi-dwarf trees are generally too large to anchor or trellis effectively. We planted our trees in 1999 and are getting the first sizable crop this year. If I had it to do over again I would plant standard trees but also plant some full dwarfs at the same time in between them to provide fruit until the standards came into production. The full dwarfs have to be staked but it's easy to do because of their small size. Many fruit tree hobbyists graft their own due to the high cost of nursery stock and the difficulty of getting the rootstock and variety desired. It's not hard to learn. Also, there's a nursery that specializes in rootstocks and fruit trees for zone 2. Perfect for the cabin.